


Dried Ink

by Crazy_Pairing_Person



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Drama, Falling In Love, Gen, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazy_Pairing_Person/pseuds/Crazy_Pairing_Person
Summary: Nishinoya is tired of pretending that they don't know why their other friends don't come to their yearly meetups. He wants - no, needs - a second chance. They all do.And they might get one.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is kiiiinda based on Orange, but minus the suicide elements. I don't really care to write about that stuff, kinda makes me relive thoughts I don't want to relive.
> 
> That in mind, enjoy the fic!

Yuu stepped out of his car, the slam of the door echoing in the cold air around him. He looked up at the diner he'd arrived at. Every year. Every year on this day, for ten years, he met his friends here.

Well, not all of them, he reminded himself wistfully. Asahi didn't come after the first time, and Koushi stopped after the third. Tobio stopped two years ago, and Ryuu...

Ryuu never showed up once, even though he was always invited.

Yuu shook off the thought as soon as it came. "Jesus," he whispered. "Still got him on my mind... Can't believe..."

He swallowed thickly, and shook his head. Now was not the time.

He moved, walking up and entering the diner. The bell above the door let out a ding, announcing his entrance. He spotted his friends at their usual table, and he sighed softly, a relaxed smile coming to his lips.

"Hey guys," he said as he approached. Shouyou, Daichi, Kei and Tadashi looked up, offering greetings of their own.

He looked down at a booster seat next to the table as he squeezed in beside Daichi and Shouyou. "Hello, there, Haruto," he said, offering the two-year-old a smile. The response he got was a sippy cup to the head.

"Oh, Haruto!" Tadashi cried. "I'm so sorry, Yuu!" He moved to lift the boy out of his chair and pull him into his lap, while Yuu reached down to pick up the cup from the floor.

"It's fine, it's fine," Yuu said, giving a soft laugh as he handed Tadashi the cup. "But, uh, out of curiosity, couldn't you have gotten a babysitter?"

Kei sighed softly. "We tried. But, as you can tell, he's already taking after me in the 'jackass' department."

"Kei! Language!" Tadashi hissed, reaching up to flick him on the side of his head.

"Right, right. Point is, we've exhausted every possible babysitter within a hundred meter radius of our house."

Yuu, Shouyou and Daichi nodded in understanding. "Well, it's great to see you guys again," Shouyou chirped.

"I guess we're not waiting for anyone else..." Yuu said softly.

A silence fell over the table, with the only sound being Haruto's mindless babbling.

Eventually, Daichi cleared his throat. "Let's not think about... Any of that," he suggested.

Yuu pursed his lips. "Yeah, you're probably tired of thinking about the reason Suga doesn't come," he snapped.

"Yuu!" Shouyou said, eyes wide.

"How's Michimiya, Daichi?" Yuu pressed. "Or do you even pay attention to your wife? Do you have to think about Suga whenever you-"

"Yuu!" Tadashi said this time. "Enough!"

"Cover his fucking ears, Tadashi!" Yuu yelled, slamming his hands down on the table. "Damn it, I'm sick of pretending we don't know why they don't come! I'm sick of pretending that we're fine with it!"

He panted heavily, cheeks flushed and eyes wide. Eventually, Daichi sighed. "He's right. It's best to admit it to ourselves. We all know why they don't come."

"Damn right we do," Yuu grumbled.

"There's no reason to be swearing in front of Haruto, though," Tadashi whined.

Kei rolled his eyes. "He's right. Now, since we've all admitted that we all know why our friends hate us-"

"They don't hate us!" Shouyou cried.

"You're right. Asahi doesn't hate you. But we're all pretty much fucked, Shouyou," Kei responded.

"I need to start bringing a swear jar to these meetings," Tadashi sighed.

"My point being," Kei said, "just because your ex doesn't hate you doesn't mean the rest of us are that lucky."

"I'm sure Suga doesn't hate m-"

"Right," Yuu said, interrupting Daichi. "He doesn't hate you. He's totally fine with the fact that you called what you had with him a 'useless fling'. Totally fine with you marrying Michimiya." He glared. "It's just a coincidence that he doesn't come to these meetings."

Daichi swallowed thickly.

"What about them?" he said, motioning to Kei and Tadashi. "They knew how Kageyama felt about them."

"We didn't-"

"Yes you did," Yuu cut Kei off. "And you felt the same way. But you were both too cowardly to do anything because of your fucking parents."

This time, Tadashi didn't respond to the swear. His eyes were wide, and his lips turned down into a frown.

"Don't act like Ryuu stopped coming for no reason," Shouyou whispered, looking at Yuu hesitantly.

Yuu swallowed thickly. "I told him I liked him after we graduated," he whispered. "I knew I shouldn't have, I knew it was a bad idea..."

He didn't continue. No one tried to force him to.

"I wish... I wish we could turn back time..." Yuu whispered. "I wish... I wish..."

 


	2. Chapter One - Noya's Letter

The loud, electronic beeping of Noya's alarm clock woke him up early in the morning. He lifted himself up out of bed, stretching his arms up above his head to relieve the tension.

First day of his third year of high school.

He hopped out of bed, rushing to get dressed so he could make it to school on time.

As he was pulling on his shoes in front of the doorway, his mother called for him from the kitchen. He frowned and pushed off the one shoe he'd gotten on before heading into the kitchen. "What's up?"

"A letter for you came just before you woke up," his mother said, motioning for an overstuffed envelope on the counter.

Noya blinked, and reached for it. There was no address, no stamp, nothing but his name on the front. He frowned in confusion, but took the letter nonetheless. "Okay. See you later, Mom."

He actually did leave then, taking the familiar route that took him by his best friend's house. Halfway to said friend's house, he finally opened the letter.

The multi-paged letter.

He tucked the envelope under his arm, and looked at the first page of the letter once he unfolded it.

_'Dear Nishinoya Yuu, I am writing to you from ten years in the future.'_

...Yeah, okay, Noya may not have made high marks in school, but he wasn't completely fucking stupid.

But, he continued reading anyway, figuring that if it was funny enough he could share it with Tanaka.

_'I am you from the future. There is one important event at the end of your current school year that I want to stop from happening. I don't know if this will even work, but I'm willing to try.'_

Noya raised an eyebrow. What 'important event'? He scoffed to himself. Couldn't even bother to go into more detail. What a wonderfully pathetic attempt at a prank.

_'To prove to you that this is real, I'm sending this to you at an earlier date, so you'll understand that I'm serious when the time comes. I'll tell you of important events, and I'm going to tell you how I wish for you to change those. Change them if you like, or ignore my advice - just take notice that the events are happening. The only event I really, really want you to change is the one at the very end of your school year.'_

Noya's feet came to a sudden stop as he read the final sentence on the first page.

_'Your friendship with Ryuu depends on it.'_

His heart leapt into his throat. He considered searching through the letter, trying to find out what exactly the event was, trying to find out what exactly could ruin his friendship with Tanaka...

But somehow, he didn't want to. Maybe because it felt like it would be cheating. Maybe because he was scared to know. Maybe...

Maybe he already knew, deep inside. Maybe he knew what was going to happen, and he didn't want to see it confirmed on the pages in front of him.

After a minute, though, he shook his head. How ridiculous. Hadn't he already decided that this letter was bullshit?

But still... He eyed the ink carefully, reading and rereading the words on the first page...

Then, slowly, he went to the next page.


	3. Chapter Two - Yamaguchi and Tsukishima's Letters

"Hey, Noya-san!" Tanaka shouted as he approached Noya. Noya, who jumped at the sound of Tanaka's voice. Quickly, he stuffed the letter haphazardly into his bag, then offered Tanaka a weak smile.

"Hey, Ryuu..."

Tanaka beamed, draping an arm around Noya's shoulders. Noya jolted at the contact, getting Tanaka's attention for a brief moment, but he didn't seem to notice anything wrong because he started talking excitedly about their final year of high school.

* * *

Meanwhile, nearby, one Yamaguchi Tadashi was looking down at a similar letter he had received himself, waiting for his best friend at their usual meeting spot halfway to the school.

"A letter from the future," he whispered, eyes wide with wonder. He looked up when he heard footsteps approaching, and smiled brightly when he saw his best friend, Tsukishima Kei, coming towards him.

"Tsukki! You'll never guess what I've got!" he said excitedly, waving the multi-paged letter in the air like a flag.

"A letter that's supposedly from the future," Tsukishima said, holding up a letter of his own. "I got one, too."

Yamaguchi's eyes widened, and Tsukishima could see the excitement in his eyes. He sighed. "Yamaguchi-"

"Tadashi," Yamaguchi quickly corrected. "You promised, remember? Now that we're dating, you said you'd call me Tadashi."

Tsukishima's cheeks turned a slight pink color, and he looked away with a soft 'tch' noise. After a moment, he spoke again, "Tadashi, don't tell me you think this is a real letter from the future. It's just a prank. You realize this, right?"

Yamaguchi pouted, visibly slumping. "I mean, I understand that that's what it _most likely_ is, but-"

"No, that's what it _is_ , Tadashi. There's no way for a letter to come from the future."

Yamaguchi gave a soft sigh. "Yeah... Okay, you're right." After a moment, he gave a soft laugh. "It did refer to you as Kei, not Tsukki."

"According to my letter, we're married in the future. Makes sense that you'd call me Kei in that situation," Tsukishima said. But then he blinked, and shook his head. "Wait, no, that's not the point. There's just no way for a letter to be from the future, Ya- Tadashi."

"We get married?!" Yamaguchi said excitedly.

"Tadashi!"

Yamaguchi gave a bright laugh. "Kidding, Tsukki, kidding! I get it, okay? No way for a letter to come from the future, I get it." He smiled happily, eyes sparkling at Tsukshima. "But it'd still be nice if we did get married in the future, right?"

Tsukishima's cheeks burned a bright red at the comment, as Yamaguchi turned, waving for Tsukishima to follow. "C'mon! Let's get to school!"

Tsukishima groaned softly, shaking his head as he followed after his boyfriend slash best friend. "Shut up, Tadashi."

"Sorry, Tsukki!"

Of course, they both knew he was nowhere near sorry, but Tsukishima didn't call him out on that.

Somewhere in the back of Tsukishima's mind, though, he did wonder about the origin of the letter. The handwriting had been quite similar to his own, after all.

Time travel wasn't possible, though, he reasoned. For a letter or a human, it wasn't possible....

Right?


	4. Chapter Three - Hinata's Letter

Hinata woke up as early as he usually did, excited about his second year of high school. He would finally get to be someone's senpai! And someone new might join the volleyball team!

The only thing he was a little sad about was Asahi.

Asahi had been so scared to tell Hinata how he felt that he'd waited until graduation, which meant that they hadn't had much time to go on any dates before Asahi had to go to college. He was really, really upset about that, of course, but Hinata figured they would stay in touch over Skype and would visit each other over breaks. That would be more than enough for Hinata until he could go to college himself - he was planning to go to the same one Asahi had ended up choosing.

Mostly for Asahi, but a little bit for the volleyball team.

His thoughts were interrupted, being ready to leave already, when he stepped on paper, the sound echoing in his ears. He looked down, seeing that he'd stepped on an overstuffed envelope with his name on it.

Just his name.

He knelt down, picking it up to examine it for an address or anything, but found nothing.

"...A letter from a stalker?" he whispered in shock, not wanting to awaken his mother or his little sister with a shout. The thought chilled him to his core.

But he shook it off. It was probably from... Um... A friend? Or a teacher? Or...

Yeah, no, definitely a stalker. He was sure of it.

He stepped outside, holding the letter like it was contaminated. The slightly chilly air hit him suddenly, and a wind blew, nearly knocking the letter from his hands. He clutched to it tightly, though, holding it to his chest.

He headed towards his bike, but hesitated, looking down at the letter.

"...I'm always early," he reasoned. "I'll be fine."

He opened the letter, leaning against the wall of his house as he pulled out the many pages from the envelope.

...The first page was shocking, but in summary, he basically had a letter from the _future_! He barely contained his shout of excitement!

According to it, his future self wanted to prevent something bad from happening. And it, apparently, had to do with his relationship with Asahi.

His heart nearly leapt into his throat. What was it?! What could happen that would cause his future self to decide to break all laws of _time and space_ to contact him in the past?! It must have been _really_ bad!

But he didn't have time to go through the entire letter, unfortunately. He sighed, and tucked the pages into his school bag. He'd have to read the rest at lunch, or something.

His phone dinged just before he got on his bike, and he opened the text. It was from Asahi.

'Good morning, Shouyou. Have a nice day.'

There was a smiling emoji next to the end of the sentence, and Hinata couldn't help but grin. Asahi had sent him good morning texts ever since they started this budding relationship, and he absolutely LOVED them, always making sure to respond.

'Good morning, Asahi! You have a nice day, too!'

He sighed softly, tucking his phone away, and starting his bike ride to school.

He didn't really know what exactly his future self planned to have him fix, but he was certain that he would manage it. He hoped so, anyway.

He didn't want to lose Asahi.


End file.
